


I'd hold your hand when the sky fell apart

by impossibletruths



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Siblings, These Kids Deserve So Much Better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 09:31:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13431888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: They grow up, and distant, but some things hold such worth that even the darkness cannot eclipse them. This cannot be unmade. (or, Ravus and Luna and growing up as prisoners of war)





	I'd hold your hand when the sky fell apart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vexahlla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vexahlla/gifts).



> a birthday gift for [@calebwizardgast](http://www.calebwizardgast.tumblr.com), who mentioned wanting more Nox Fleuret sibling fic
> 
> title from Sisters by Radical Face

He’s the first living person she sees, afterwards. It has been... days, she thinks. She’s not sure. They bring her food and nothing else, and she may be young but she knows a prison when caught in one.

So, it is something of a surprise when her door opens late at night, so late it is almost tomorrow. She should be asleep, of course, but she’s not, because she can’t, because every time she closes her eyes she––

( _lets go, and they run, and they leave her, and she stands tall, and she will not be cowed will not be afraid will not will not will Noct be safe will he come back will he help will he––_ )

“Luna?”

The door creaks a little as he closes it, and she sits up, tiny amidst the pillows and blankets and sheets and sheer  _size_  of the bed. Ravus takes a pair of hesitant steps further into the room, footsteps nearly silent on the carpet. “Luna, are you awake?”

“Yes,” she says, voice swallowed by the hollow space of her room. “I’m awake.”

She can’t quite see him in the dark, but she hears the whisper of cloth and then the bed dips as he joins her. She scoots over, even though there is more than enough space for both of them. He curls up next to her.

“I can’t sleep,” he says, voice barely a whisper. It trembles in the air between them. 

“Me neither,” she replies, just as quiet. He presses closer against her.

“What are they going to do?” he asks. “What do they want?”

“I don’t know,” she says, because she is just a girl and he is just a boy and they are too young for this, for cages and blood and burning. (Niflheim doesn’t care. Niflheim knows nothing of childhood, or growth, or innocence. These are things they will have to unlearn, these children dragged to war. They are clever; they will learn quickly. More’s the pity.) “I don’t know, Ravus.”

“I won’t let them hurt you,” he promises, as if it is a promise he can make. “I’ll keep you safe,” he says, as though he has any power here, in this game of gods and monsters. “I promise, Luna.”

“I know, Ravus,” she says, and she knows as well as he that the words are empty. 

Alone in this big, empty room, she can almost manage to believe.

That will be important, she thinks distantly. An Oracle should be able to believe.

“I promise,” he echoes. She leans her head against his shoulder and stares out at the endless dark. His hand finds hers, and they sit there, two souls adrift in the night. She squeezes his hand.

“I know.”

* * *

(He is her first memory, hair like cloudwisps, still round with youth. She does not understand the words, but she remembers his face, smiling at her. Remembers his finger in her fist. Remembers laughter. She holds on to that one the longest. It flickers like a candle among the dark, and she clutches it all the tighter.)

* * *

The first time they stick him in one of their uniforms, it is truly laughable. He looks small amid the cloth, narrow and young, a boy in his father’s clothes pretending at being grown.

What is not so laughable is the way they parade him through the castle, where everyone might see him, head high and fists clenched and wearing the garb of the enemy. He stands tall at Aldercapt’s side as the man drones on about peace and prosperity and  _coming to the fold, finally safe_ , and Luna could vomit but she is standing at the dais herself, Oracle-to-be dripping in the richest finery of Tenebrae.

A puppet show, she thinks, face carefully impassive. There is nothing honorable or peaceful in this invasion, in this imprisonment. It churns in her stomach, and she stands all the taller for it. They will not see her weak. She will not let them.

Afterwards, they come together like crashing waves in the solitude of the antechamber, the monstrous soldiers uncaring when Luna throws the crown of jewels they have bestowed upon her across the room with a shout.

“I hate this,” she says, small and tired and sitting slumped against the cool marble wall. The floor is smooth beneath her open palm. He crouches next to her, crumpling the hem of his regalia. She presses her fingertips harder against the marble, watching as they turn white with the pressure.

“I’m gonna kill them,” he says, and there is such vitriol to his voice she looks up. “All of them, and Aldercapt, and Izunia, and Regis, and––”

“King Regis did nothing,” Luna protests.

“I know,” says her brother, eyes blazing. “That’s the point.”

They come back then, drag her up and him away, and she fights the whole way back to her gilded prison and  _curses_  them when they slam the door on her until her throat is raw and her fits ache from pounding against the unyielding wood, and only then does she slide down, staring out at her too-large room and the windows that look over a world she can no longer touch.

They are empty, her windows, beautiful graceful things with no life to them. She thinks she rather might grow something in that light. A reminder that she––that  _they_ ––will not be cowed.

* * *

(”They’re sylleblossoms,” he says, holding one out so she can inspect it with the careful eye of a child. “They’re mother’s favorite.”

"Ravus,” she asks, arms full of the flowers as she trails along behind him, “how come we don’t take all of ‘em?”

“If we did that there wouldn’t be any left,” he says. “You have to leave some, so more can grow. That’s how it all continues. You leave a little bit to keep going.”

“Oh,” she says, as if she understands. She doesn’t, not then. But she will. Eventually. “Okay.”)

* * *

She is so engrossed in the book she does not even hear him approach, notices nothing until he speaks. "I am to leave.”

She nearly jumps. “What?”

“I have a commission.”

Slowly, she closes her book.

He looks proud in his uniform, finally filled out to fit it. The colors suit him, suit his cloudwisp hair and the angles of his face. It’s funny; she does not remember his face being so sharp. He looks very much like Father in this moment. The thought makes her heart ache.

“Where will you go?”

“The front.”

“Ravus––”

“It was my choice, Luna.”

That, more than anything, silences her.

“I can do nothing here,” he says, stilted and rough-edged into the space between them. “It–– I must fight.”

“For them?” She does not mean to sound quite so bitter. She cannot bring herself to mind that she does.

“For our people.” He hesitates, words caught on his lips. She watches him struggle to speak. “We cannot beat them, Luna.”

“Certainly not, if we do not try.”

“Do not speak to me of  _trying_. I have done all I can.”

She stands abruptly, energy thrumming beneath her skin. “And what will fighting their battles for them do to help Tenebrae? What will it do to honor our fallen? What will it do to beat back the darkness at our doorstep?”

His voice goes sharp, brittle. “I do not require a lecture.”

“But you might do with some more sense,” she scoffs

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to tell me what you think you will gain from this!”

“It will protect  _you_!”

Ringing silence follows his outburst. She stares at him, and cannot be sure of what she sees. He swallows. 

"If I fight for them,” he says softly, “they will look more kindly on you.”

“I am not worth the lives of so many.”

“You can save them, Luna,” he says, and he speaks with such heavy conviction she cannot breathe beneath the weight of it. “You can do more good for them than I ever can.”

“You think too little of yourself.”

“I think of the realities.”

He is not altogether wrong. That is perhaps the worst of it. She sinks down into her seat again, and he kneels to join her.

“Trust me in this,” he says. “I will keep you safe.”

It is an old promise, and she believes it no more now than she did then.

“You cannot leave me here forever,” she tells him. He closes his eyes and nods.

“I know,” he says, opening them. “But allow me to try.”

“I do not approve.”

“I know.”

She swallows, and kisses his cheek. There is little else to be said. “Be safe. Come back.”

“Always.”

And like that, he is gone, and she is left with nothing but her book and the quiet, certain knowledge that one day she will be called upon to fill a great duty and not even he will be able to protect her.

* * *

(The nightmare sends her seeking Mother, but Mother is not in her rooms, and so she knocks on Ravus’ door instead, floor cold against her bare feet, the dream still echoing in her mind.

“Luna?” he asks, when he opens the door. “It’s so late.”

“I had a bad dream,” she says. “Can I stay with you?”

“Of course. Of course you can.”

He tucks her into the bed and climbs in next to her. She shifts next to him, lets the familiar warmth of him wash away the memory of the nightmare.

“You’re okay,” he tells her quietly. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, not ever. I promise.”

“Even bad dreams?”

“Even bad dreams,” he swears, and when she dozes off she finds him good as his word, and sleeps deep and dreamless.)

* * *

It is rare that they send him with her upon her trips. They say it is for fear of their safety, but privately she and he both know it is because a house divided cannot rise against its oppressors. They are not nearly so foolish as she or her brother wishes.

But this is nearby, and something of a last-minute decision, and chance or fate has decreed he be the one present, an oversight she is sure they will not repeat.

(Someone, she is sure, has lost their job for this, if not more.)

He says nothing as she speaks to the crowd and nothing as she works; he could well be a statue for all that he moves. Still, she does not miss the weight of his gaze on her back. The crowd makes a wide circle around him, and it is a dual cruelness that his own people would so boldly distance themselves from him.

She tries not to think of it overmuch. There is other work to be done.

The healing leaves her tired to her bones, and her hands tremble, and only when the pavilion has been cleared does she sink back into her chair. Slowly, slowly, the ice around him cracks, and she thinks she sees the shade of her brother peek through.

“Are you alright?” he asks, stiff. She rubs the tension from her neck.

“Fine,” she answers. It is almost automatic, these days. “Only tired.”

He does not believe her. She reads that much, at least.

But he does not press, only says, “We should return,” brittle and just as tired. She stands, and stumbles, and he catches her. “Luna––”

“I’m alright, Ravus.”

He scoffs, and she straightens, pulling away.

“Nothing of this is alright,” he bites out, hands fists at his side. She swallows a sigh.

“It is what we must work with.”

“You sound like him.”

“Who?”

“Regis.” He speaks the name like a curse. Luna does sigh, then.

“King Regis bears his own burdens. We cannot lay ours also at his feet.”

He stares at her a long moment, then sinks into the chair she has abandoned, a puppet with his strings cut. He looks hollow like it too, something missing behind his eyes where fire used to be.

“I do not know how you do it,” he says quietly. She lays a hand on his shoulder.

“I do it because I must. Just as you do, and Regis, and Noctis too. We are greater than ourselves. We must be.”

“Is this the Oracle or my sister talking?”

“Can it not be both?”

He huffs something in the shape of a sigh, or perhaps a laugh, and takes her hands between his own. “I only worry,” he murmurs. She stares down at him, and does not know what to say, because he is right to. She does much the same for him. What a mess has been made of them. A house divided indeed.

In the end, she settles for kissing the crown of his head, cloud wisp hair soft against her lips. He breathes deep and full, and fondness washes through her.

“Come,” she says, tugging him up. “We must go.”

“Yes. To our duty.” He releases her hands, and she watches that ice solidify again.

At least he is still there, beneath it. At least she has not lost that too.

* * *

(”Is it weird?”

She shrugs. “Not really.”

“I think it would be weird.”

“Well I can’t do it  _yet_ ,” she points out, tongue poking out as she selects her next color. Next to her, he turns a page in his book.

“Is Mother going to teach you?”

“She said she’s going to teach me everything.”

“My sister the Oracle. That’s pretty cool.”

She looks up from her coloring to smile at him. “It is,” she agrees, and he grins back.

She is too young yet to see the cruel things in their future. She is content to color at her brother’s side, and dream of magic and peace.)

* * *

He brings her to the car, fingers tight around her arm, and it is not until she has settled in the back seat that his grip loosens.

He looks suddenly like that boy again, too small in a uniform not made for him.

“Ravus,” she murmurs. “I know the choice I am making.”

“It is foolish.”

“Foolish as fighting for the enemy?”

It is an old argument by now. “If it will keep you safe––”

“Nothing will keep me safe, Ravus.”

His face is young again too, limned in that old suffering they have never managed to outgrow. “Luna––”

“I have made my choice,” she says, quiet and firm, and for all that she is the younger he has always been that same little boy, seeking his mother and finding nothing but violence in her place. “You must make yours.”

He stares at her, and leans down to kiss her forehead.

“I love you,” he says, quietly. She squeezes his hand.

“I love you too, brother. Take care of our people.”

“Until you return,” he promises, and it is one she knows he will keep. How far they have come, from those frightened children curled in bed together. How funny it is, that they have grown so much and changed so little.

Then the driver arrives, and the whole of the Niflheim delegation with him, and Ravus straightens with that hard-learned formality.

“Travel safely,” he says, and then the door closes, and the car pulls forward.

When she glances back, he stands there in the drive, narrow and brittle and dressed in a uniform that fits him ill.

She turns her eyes to the road ahead, and does not look back again.

* * *

(”Ravus!” she calls, excitement blooming within her. The car pulls up to the gate, slow and steady, and even from here she can see the king of Lucis and his son step out. Her brother joins her and the two stand side-by-side, watching their guests arrive.

“Look,” she says with a smile. “Noctis is here.”)


End file.
